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A comment on Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star. Parent comment

Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by politician on Friday February 11, 2022 @08:33AM (#30301250)
This is hopeful negativism.

- They don't need fusion. A StarShip can deposit hundreds of solar panels and put them on the ground. No, dust isn't an issue because they'll bring a roomba. No, this isn't a joke, NASA martian probes' solar panels were cleaned by a light Martian breeze.

- They will be able to become self-sufficient rapidly. They're not going to send 1M tons of cargo to Mars without a deployment plan. SpaceX and Tesla have already demonstrated effective vertically integrated supply chains and manufacturing. They have the institutional knowledge to mine raw materials and build factories that build complex parts.

- There are plenty of other Earth-bound governments and billionaires that could devote funds to zero-emission large scale energy production projects. Musk, his companies and assets amount to a very small fraction of the global economy. Your ire is misdirected: your anger about the situation is properly directed at the rule of corrupt imbeciles and their questionable resource allocation decisions (Netflix, coal, etc.) here on Earth rather than one team of folks who seem extraordinarily mission driven and effective.

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Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by samatman on Friday February 11, 2022 @09:22AM (#30301784)
Mars has dust storms which last months or years, it has no ionosphere, and that dust contains enough perchlorates to poison anything we could eat, including us. Ok, that sentence went somewhere odd at the end but, it's true.

A large asteroid has only one of these problems, by virtue of not coming with any atmosphere, ionic or otherwise.

I kinda hope Elon is bluffing and actually plans to head to the Belt. I've penciled it out and and he'd have to be insane not to. Surely he has pencils as well.

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Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by spookthesunset on Friday February 11, 2022 @12:07PM (#30303860)
The Martian dust storms are pretty tame. Nothing like portrayed in the movies. The atmosphere is 1% of what it is here on earth.

So while it is a “storm” it isn’t like a tropical force hurricane or anything. More like a very minor annoyance that deposits a bit more Martian dust on your stuff over time.

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Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by ethbr0 on Friday February 11, 2022 @10:53AM (#30302827)
Isn't long term zero-g pretty hostile to our biology?
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Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by kibwen on Friday February 11, 2022 @02:26PM (#30305914)
Mars is 0.3 G, which is just as hostile for long-term habitation. No human child conceived, born, and raised in that environment would have the ability to stand on Earth without an Aliens-style rigid exosuit. Their heart might not even be capable of pumping blood to their head.
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Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by ErikCorry on Friday February 11, 2022 @03:03PM (#30306333)
Nobody knows what 0.3 g does to the body because we've spent 20 years on the ISS doing zero-g "science" even after the most important question was answered:

Q: What does zero-g do to the human body?

A: It's really really unhealthy.

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Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by lanstin on Friday February 11, 2022 @11:04AM (#30302996)
Hollow out the asteroid and spin it.
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Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by edgyquant on Friday February 11, 2022 @05:48PM (#30307939)
This wouldn’t work, asteroids are like gravel there isn’t really anything to hollow out and even if you did when you spun it the asteroid would just shoot these rocks out in all directions.
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Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by Tepix on Friday February 11, 2022 @12:04PM (#30303813)
That tech is decades in the future.
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Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by ethbr0 on Friday February 11, 2022 @01:45PM (#30305412)
Is it? Assuming an asteroid of appropriate structural strength, it's just a question of time + propulsion. And acceleration adds up pretty quickly when you're in a vacuum and have all the time you want.
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Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by eternalban on Friday February 11, 2022 @10:18AM (#30302396)
What's the story on navigating in the belt? Approach specific target from above or reasonably safe to traverse it and explore?
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Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by GoblinSlayer on Friday February 11, 2022 @09:50AM (#30302088)
>They're not going to send 1M tons of cargo to Mars without a deployment plan.

Can this happen? I imagine before we can settle on Mars we first should be comfortable flying there, and the latter should be sufficient for asteroid mining. But, right, our technology is just not at a comfortable level yet.

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Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by politician on Saturday February 12, 2022 @09:49PM (#30318659)
Comfortable comes much later than possible. When it's possible to go, that's the time to go. The early Atlantic crossings weren't comfortable, just possible.
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Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by GoblinSlayer on Monday February 14, 2022 @03:51AM (#30329783)
Unlike Atlantic, Mars isn't habitable, you can't settle there with merely possible crossing. Maybe first establish a colony at 1km depth in the ocean; we are relatively comfortable going there, but what it takes to run a colony there and would it be possible with only possible crossing?
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